DALC | Dawson Active Learning Community

About

At Dawson College, faculty have been increasingly turning to Active Learning as an evidence-based instructional approach. To support this growth, the college has invested resources in developing Active Learning classrooms and in the development of pedagogical resources and capacity through a number of faculty and researcher-lead initiatives – including the development of the Dawson Active Learning Community (DALC) and SALTISE.

Active Learning Info from the DALC

What is Active Learning?

Active Learning is a student-centred pedagogical approach that juxtaposes more traditional instructor-centered approaches to teaching. Active Learning is effective at improving deep learning, conceptual understanding and exam grades while reducing failures (for a comprehensive meta-analysis of Active Learning in STEM fields, see Freeman et al., 2014, available at https://www.pnas.org).

Dawson is considered a leader in the educational community when it comes to Active Learning, and as a result a number of faculty have received local, provincial and national awards.

The Active Learning Classroom

Classrooms that are purposefully designed for Active Learning can complement good pedagogical strategies, can make the orchestration of complex activities easier for the teacher, and can offer affordances that both learners and instructors can leverage in the construction of knowledge.

Using an iterative design process driven by teachers and based on a program of research into the use and effectiveness of the spaces, Dawson has developed a series of classrooms specifically for Active Learning.

Active Learning classroom development at Dawson has been a faculty-driven process that is both iterative and research-based – a process that has been heavily influenced by Design Based Implementation Research (DBIR – see research by WR Penuel and BJ Fishman). As a result of this process several design principles have emerged as core principles of our classroom designs.

The AL Environment

Find out how the DALC provides students with the ideal environment for collaborative learning thorough Active Learning Classrooms – Click here

DALC Fellows Program for the Upcoming Semester

The DALC Fellows is a program that provides full-time Dawson faculty members with support to develop knowledge and discipline-specific activities to be used in the active learning (AL) environments; and, it includes a modest amount of release time to do so.

Types of DALC Gatherings

AL book club

The DALC fellows invite you to join us for our book club where we will be exploring the literature on/around active learning. These meetings will be informal opportunities to discuss readings from books like HOW LEARNING WORKS (Ambrose et al., 2010) and articles from the academic literature that teachers find interesting and want to discuss.

For more information, please contact Cory Legassic (clegassic@dawsoncollege.qc.ca).

Active Learning 101

Are you curious about Active Learning and want to know what it is? This session will take a beginners look at the what, how and why of Active Learning. No experience or prior understanding of AL is required and no active learning classroom is required. All are welcome!

Active Learning Show, Tell & Feedback

Drop-in and share what you are doing, hear from colleagues about what they are doing, and give each other feedback on how to improve teaching and learning.

Fall 2019 – These sessions are part of the regular ‘Show, tell & feedback’ meetings that are being held on the 1st Friday of each month in Fall 2019

Active Strategies that Work

Types of Presentations

CAT’s – Come and explore Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) as a tool for Active Learning. This session will be a co-presentation of OAD and the DALC Fellows and it is intended for beginner AL teachers – whether you’re in an AL classroom or not.
Best of SALTISE – Come and explore a variety of active learning strategies in a “Cracker Barrel” session format in which instructors teaching in various disciplines with a variety of active learning strategies will show their stuff. Attendees will get first hand experience on several AL strategies.

Fall 2019 – These sessions are part of the regular ‘Active Strategies that Work’ meetings that are being held on the 2nd Friday of each month in Fall 2019.

Advanced Topics in Active Learning

Types of presentations

Branching Scenarios – Join us for an exploration of “Branching Scenarios”: immersive virtual simulations that allow students to experience the consequences of different choices while engaged in a risk-free online environment. Used frequently in medical fields, this strategy can be applied to a wide variety of disciplines and topics.

Fall 2019 – This session is part of the regular ‘Advanced Topics in Active Learning’ meetings that are being held on the 3rd Friday of each month in Fall 2019.

Active Learning and Technology

Types of presentations

E-learning – Online technologies offer potential for complementing and/or improving Active Learning. Join us for an interactive asynchronous e-learning workshop in which we explore the use of online learning. This session will be given in collaboration with the Dawson e-learning initiative and will be held entirely online (so you can wear your pyjamas if you like!).
Using and Managing Cell Phones in the AL classroom – Cell phones are notorious for their ability to distract our students’ attention away from the task at hand – and yet they can be powerful aids to learning if used correctly. Join us for an exploration of the ways to tap into the positive/productive potential of cell phones in the Active Learning classroom.

Fall 2019 – These sessions are part of the regular ‘Active Learning and Technology’ meetings that are being held on the 4th Friday of each month in Fall 2019.

DALC Resources Produced

How to Get Students to Read Before Class

Reflective Writing (RW) is a way to get students to come to class prepared for a more meaningful engagement with the content/topic in a particular class.

Active Learning Instruction and Active Learning Classrooms At Dawson

The goal of this document is to be a resource for both new, and not so new, teachers who use Active Learning instructional methods and the Active Learning classrooms at Dawson.

Eight big ideas on active learning from evidence-based research

Designing and Implementing (Orchestrating) Instruction

Latest Fellows

Winter 2020 Fellows

Catherine Roy (Physiotherapy Thechnology)
Johanne Rabbat (Religion)
Catherine Braithwait (History)
Ahmed Banki (Economics)

Fall 2019 Fellows

Cory Legassic (New School/Humanities)
Catherine Roy (Physiotherapy Thechnology)
Johanne Rabbat (Religion)

Winter 2019

Chris Whittaker (DALC Coordinator)
Andreea Stanciu-Panait (Math)
Cory Legassic (New School/Humanities)
Catherine Payne (English)

Fall 2018

Chris Whittaker (DALC Coordinator)
Jeff Gandell (English)
Andreea Stanciu-Panait (Math)
Anthony Berkers (Phys Ed)
Cory Legassic (New School/Humanities)
Catherine Payne (English)

Past Events

Coordinators

Chris Whittaker

SALTISE Committee Member, Dawson College, Montreal

Selma Hamdami

SALTISE Contributor, Dawson College, Montreal